


Blessed Be the Boys Time Can't Capture

by Polyhexian



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: Rewind is not a fan of Chromedome's best friend, but he tries to be civil on the walk to the Lost Light's launch zone, until the ground gives out under them and, suddenly, he's stuck working with Brainstorm to keep his Conjunx alive.Alt: I drop a big rock on my ot3 and make them cry a lot.
Relationships: Brainstorm/Chromedome (Transformers), Brainstorm/Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers), Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 73





	1. 196

When you wake it's to a nightmare, processor spitting up old video files you wish you were strong enough to trash, but won't. Luckily, though, when you're pulled from recharge it's not screaming or thrashing- you just wake tense and terrified, before the feeling passes and you go slack, condensation pooling against your plating. You roll over. 

Good. You didn't wake Chromedome. 

He never gets enough rest. For every nightmare that interrupts your recharge, he has ten, and he's _still_ doing better than he used to. Eventually he will have to get up, but you'd rather let him have every moment you can before he has to.

Even still, you shift closer so you can trail an arm across his side, one hand on his cheek. He's a heavy sleeper- at least when it comes to external stimuli. He doesn't stir as you rest your palm against the side of his helm, thumb working little circles against the metal as you gaze through your dimmed visor at his faceplate, slack and peaceful. 

The war is over, and how strange it is for that. You wonder when it will inevitably start back up again, because there's no way this heavy, insincere ceasefire will really last. It's a chance, at least, for some kind of reprieve. You deserve a break. He deserves a break. You've been on Kimia for so long since he was stationed there, you haven't been able to pursue your side project in… too many years, honestly. The guilt is starting to eat at you, like it always does. 

You spend a while laying there, feeling the thrum of his spark through his frame against yours, before he shifts minutely beneath your fingers and shifts his head into your hand a little more, needily. You snicker at his immediate cybercat instincts and wrap your arms around his neck to pull your faceplates together, nuzzling his mask with your own. 

"G'morning," he mumbles, visor still offline, but sounding distinctly pleased. 

"Good morning, love," you say, voice soft and low, "How did you sleep?"

"Okay. You?"

"Just fine," you lie, "Lucky us. Are you ready to go join Rodimus's booze cruise today?" 

"Oh, right," Chromedome yawns, "That _is_ today, isn't it." 

"Mmhm. We can sleep in a little bit longer, though, before we're officially running late." 

"I'm okay with that," he says, and wraps his big arms around you, pulling you flush against his body with a sigh that radiates so much relief and love you can't help but melt into it. You're so lucky to be here right now, with him, alive, in love, at peace, when there's so many other terrible places you could be, so many times you should have died and didn't. You bury your faceplate in his collar plating and hum his spark pulse frequency by memory.

There's a knock at the door.

You can't disguise the flare of irritation in your field, but he doesn't comment on it. 

"Just a sec!" Chromedome calls as he sits up, and you sigh, rolling your spinal strut as you stretch out all your servos. 

"Come on, then, sleepyheads!" Brainstorm says through the door, "Let's not be late on our first day!" 

Brainstorm is one to talk, considering he's late to almost everything all the time. Your Conjunx rolls out of the berth and unplugs, gathering up the few things in your mutual possession and getting ready for the day. You won't miss the hotel, at least, even if you've only been here a few days. It's been so long since you lived on Cybertron, and it feels so unfamiliar now. You miss space, and you get the feeling Chromedome does, too. 

"Certainly took you long enough, hm?" Brainstorm tuts when you open the door. You probably _could_ have disguised _this_ flare of irritation in your field, but you don't try. He knows you don't like him and you don't intend to pretend otherwise. If he notices, though, he doesn't comment on it.

"Some of us don't wake up with the sun, Storm," Chromedome sighs. 

"Some of us should try it, then!" Brainstorm laughs, and you drop off the room key up front before heading toward the Mitteous Plateau to walk to the Lost Light's launch zone. 

"You know, this would go faster if we could just _drive_ ," Chromedome grumbles, and you roll your visual display.

"Oh, there he goes," you moan, "Back on alt mode bashing."

"I'm just saying, we have them for a _reason_ ," he huffs, "I can just give you a ride."

"No way," you say firmly, slicing your hands through the air, "You don't have an interior since your last rescan. I'm not just going to _sit on you_ , that's so dangerous!"

" _I_ still have a cockpit," Brainstorm quips, and you wish you could frown at him.

"No thanks," you say, dryly. 

"Your loss," he says, "They do say walking is good for the servos, at least."

"Yeah, maybe if you're under six million," you grumble under your breath. 

"Are you sure you don't want a ride, love?" Chromedome asks, and you feel a smug satisfaction when Brainstorm's wings twitch, "I can carry you on my shoulders if you want."

"I'm fine, Domey," you sigh, "It's not too far." 

"How many others do you think Rodimus has conned into his frat cruise, hm?" Brainstorm asks, changing subjects. 

"I can't expect more than a few dozen," Chromedome replies, "Even with Drift writing his speeches for him."

"Do you think any Decepticons will show?" You muse, "He said it was a non-aligned vessel."

"I doubt it," Brainstorm says, "Even if one wanted to, you think that any con with a brain wants to live on a ship full of Autobots? That's a death wish if I've ever heard one."

"Hm," you hum, "Fair enough. Good riddance, anyway."

"I think Animus mentioned he was coming," Chromedome said.

"Swerve said the same thing," you add, "So at least we know we'll know some people there."

"Do you think Perceptor might come?" Brainstorm wonders out loud.

"I hope so," you say, and you mean that. You'd love it if Brainstorm would obsess over someone other than your Conjunx for once. You know they've known each other for a very, very long time, but it's weird how close they are and you don't like it. There's something funny about it and you don't trust Brainstorm. 

The Mitteous Plateau stretches out around you, red-purple stone that rises up in asymmetrical spires randomly. There's something ominous about this place, especially in this state, totally undeveloped. It's notorious for its fragile structure and pockets of sink holes, but at least it's kind of pretty. Its a nice day, the sky yellow-blue and hazy with early morning mist, the outline of the Lost Light warbling in the distance a few miles away. 

"I'm sure Rodimus will put you in charge of something, Storms," Chromedome laughs pleasantly, "You're too talented to waste." 

Brainstorm's wings flap and you narrow your optical display, "Right, and we all know Rodimus, so I'm sure he won't mind your history of putting everyone around you in constant danger with your whimsical lack of safety measures. He'll probably make you science officer."

Brainstorm's wings sink and then snap and he's about to respond when Chromedome cuts him off.

"Rewind, come on," he sighs, exasperated, "Please."

"What?" you snap, pushing it. 

"Just let it go, CD," Brainstorm says, "It's fine."

"Storm-"

"He said it was fine, Domey," you say, watching him as he tilts his helm back to cut you a glare of his own, and an awkward silence follows, before Chromedome tries to speak again.

"So… anyway, I wondered if-" 

You don't get to find out what it was he was wondering, because he cuts himself off as the ground beneath you gives a _crack_ and a violent shudder, and the three of you freeze. You hear the start of a transformation sequence from Brainstorm, but he doesn't get a chance to finish before the ground gives out beneath you and plunges the three of you into overwhelming darkness.


	2. 1123

When you wake it's to a nightmare, processor spitting visions of falling and crashing and your hands too small to reach for someone you want to save. Your head feels like it's full of molten lava, and when your optical display flickers online you immediately notice the lightning crack that's running across your visor, the feeling of dust and debris spilling off your plating as you push yourself to your elbows and try to determine where you are and what's going on.

It's dark, very dark, clearly underground, and when your optics focus on motion, you realize you're looking at Brainstorm, leaning over your Conjunx's still form. 

"Hey!" you shout, and immediately cough, clearly your vocalizer as it spits static, "What are you doing!" You stumble to your feet and limp over to him and he cuts you a _deeply_ irritated glance, crumpled wings shifting back all the way.

"I'm keeping your Conjunx Endura _alive_ , thank you very much," he snaps, looking back at what he's doing.

Chromedome's visor is offline, his body spread out ragdolled, unconscious. His chest plating has been opened, a jury-rigged fuel line running from him to Brainstorm, a gash in his side battlefield cauterized. Nearby a sharp stalagmite juts upward from the ground, caked in drying energon, and outward from it, covering the entire area, mismatched red-pink patches of smeared energon decorated the stone. 

Your spark sinks all the way to your pedes. "Is he okay?"

"He fell on that," Brainstorm answers, pointing at the stalagmite, "And ruptured his primary fuel line. As long as he's patching through me he should be okay for now, at least, but he needs to see a real medic soon. This isn't my area." 

Your optics flicker up the split line from Chromedome's open chest to Brainstorm's, and then back down, feeling at least a little guilty for snapping at him. You check your comm signal and get back static.

"Are you able to call out?" you ask.

"No," he admits, "The walls are too thick. They're blocking frequencies." 

"And Domey needs to see a real doctor, soon," you murmur, sinking to your knees so you can tilt his helm to the side and look at him. Through your cracked visor you can see how badly off he really is- crumpled finials, shattered visor, dented mouthplate. He took a hard fall. Far worse than you did. 

"Move over," Brainstorm says, suddenly, shifting his position to get his feet flat on the floor, "I'll carry him."

"What?" you gaupe, "You'll carry him? _Out_ of here?' 

"Huff- do you have a better idea?" he grunts, shifting to get Chromedome to sit up, leaning slackly forward. 

Your hands waver uncertainly in front of you, closing in frustrated little fists. You wish you could do something useful here, but you can't. Too small, too weak, too useless. Brainstorm hefts your Conjunx Endura onto his back, flattening his dented wings as he does, locking his elbows under Chromedome's legs and tugging his arms over his shoulders. Chromedome stays offline and unresponsive, dead weight. 

Brainstorm stands up. 

"Do we just pick a direction and go?" you ask, confirming this is genuinely the best plan between the two of you that you can come up with.

"Well. Again. Do you have a better plan?" 

You don't. 

"Just be _careful_ with him," you say, sharply, as he stumbles over some debris and jostles his ride-along, and Brainstorm cuts you a glare of completely undisguised resentment.

"You know he's unconscious, right?" he says, and you narrow your visor to respond before he cuts you off, "He can't hear you showing off."

"Excuse me?" you snap, taken aback.

"I've known him longer than you have and I've not gotten him killed yet," he says, voice sharp, "You can stop _flexing_ until he wakes up at least. It's cheap and it's unbecoming."

You gape at him as he continues walking down the tunnel, lit only by cracked biolights casting red tinted light on the walls. " _Excuse_ me?"

"You're excused."

"Fuck you," you snarl, patience worn thin, "You're being completely pedantic."

" _I'm_ being pedantic?" he laughs, "I just knocked my cranium out of alignment and I'm not in the mood to get harassed by my best friend's _insecure_ Conjunx _yet again_ just because you aren't strong enough to carry him. You're the _pedantic_ one."

"Insec- I am _not_ insecure!" 

"Oh, _please_ ," he rolls his optics as you catch up to walk beside him, having to halfway jog to keep up with his longer-legged pace, "You can't even handle him mentioning _Prowl_ without reminding you that he hates him. You practically accuse him of _cheating_ every time I walk in the room. You're _very_ insecure. You should work on that." He adjusts his grip again with a snort.

"Prowl treats him like trash!" you remind him, "You _want_ him to forget that? He's a _doormat_ sometimes, he will absolutely let that mech keep treating him like garbage if I don't keep reminding him that he deserves better!" 

"Oh, I agree," Brainstorm nods, "He deserves better." 

You kind of want to punch him, but he's definitely still attached to your Conjunx _and_ his only way out so that would be a _very_ bad idea. 

"It doesn't matter if you like me or not," you hiss at him, visor flared, " _He_ picked _me_." 

He doesn't look at you but you see his face twitch, beneath the faceplate. You wish you could smirk. You've hit a nerve after all.

"Sure," he says, coolly, "For whatever that counts for."

"And what does _that_ mean?"

"It means whatever you want it to mean," he answers, still not looking at you, "Don't think I'm jealous."

"You're _so_ jealous," you insist, pushing it now that you've found an avenue to get under his plating, "You follow him _everywhere._ Don't you have _any_ other friends?" 

"Don't you?" 

"Plenty," you scramble up an incline and reach down to help Brainstorm up, wishing you could scowl as you do so, "Even Domey has other friends."

"Oh, he certainly does," Brainstorm says, a strange slyness creeping into his voice, "He's had plenty of other _friends._ "

"...What does _that_ mean?" you narrow your visor again, suspicious.

"Whatever you want it to mean!" he sing-songs, and then pauses in front of a split in the path, "Bugger. Heads or tails, then?"

You look down both dark paths for a moment, thinking. "You're a jet, aren't you? Can't you check for wind pressure?" 

"Right," he mumbles, twitching his wings, before he nods to the left, "Air's moving from that way." He steps in line and you follow.

"He hasn't dated anyone before me," you tell him, after a moment of silence passes, "He's told me that and he's not a liar. Stop trying so hard."

" _He's not a liar_ ," Brainstorm laughs, "Right."

"If he's really your friend, then don't be a jerk to him," you snap, "He's not a liar."

"He is a liar," Brainstorm says, firmly, "To you, to me, to himself. Chromedome has no issues lying to anyone."

"That's a horrible thing to say."

"Sure is. True, though."

"No wonder you don't have any other friends."

"No wonder, indeed."

"Maybe you should _make_ some," you say, lowering your voice, "For the day he realizes what a bad influence you are."

He glances down at you with what you bizarrely read as _pity_. "Trust me," he laughs, bitterly, "That day is never going to come."

For the third time in far too short a timespan, you narrow your visor at him and ask, "And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It _means_ ," Brainstorm says, before he grunts and stumbles and readjusts his grip, "Chromedome realizes whatever he wants to realize. He knows whatever he wants to know. And he knows, even if he doesn't know why he knows, he _knows_ ," he says, and stumbles again, before he pauses, panting, "He _knows_ he isn't getting rid of me."

"What are you _talking_ about?"

"I mean I was here before he met you," he snaps, and then struggles back up, resuming walking, "and I'll be here when you're gone, too." 

"Yeah, well," you look away from him as he stumbles again, "I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

"That's fine," Brainstorm says, easily, "Neither am I."

You don't like Brainstorm. You have never liked Brainstorm. From the moment you met him you have disliked him. Chromedome you liked immediately- Chromedome is troubled but _good_ at his core, the kind of person to pause his own suicide attempt to comfort a stranger. For all the things he's done and all the mistakes he's made, you _know_ him. Whatever he's done and will do, the pillar of who he _is_ is _good_.

 _Brainstorm_ though you've never been able to peg. No matter how much time you spend around him you feel like you don't know anything about him. He talks in circles and he loves to mislead. He always has an angle and he always acts like he's playing some elaborate game with everyone and he's playing to win. You don't trust him, and you have no idea why Chromedome _does._

You walk in silence for awhile, the tension suffocating in the right quarters, before he speaks again.

"He's not going to _cheat_ on you," he says, eventually, "So you can _stop_ being so paranoid about that. It's not going to happen."

He's offering you an olive branch, but you don't want it. "He's not going to cheat on me because he _loves_ me," you snarl, "and he does _not_ love you."

"I know that," he says, though he sounds infuriatingly unaffected, "Better than you do."

"Did he turn you down?" you ask, twisting the knife, desperate for a reaction, "have you been following your old crush since The New Institute and hoping something might finally change?"

"He didn't turn me down," he laughs, and then coughs, stumbling, "Drop it." 

"I don't want to drop it," you tell him, "So, what? You've been harbouring your little crush for three million years? Did you never tell him because you _knew_ he didn't want you? Is that it?"

"I said _drop_ it," he says, more firmly, more angrily. 

"And you're _still_ following him around? Do you think anything is ever going to be any different? Do you think he's going to pick you over anyone else when you've been on the table for so long? What do you think is going to change, huh?!" You're being fucking _mean_ but you _want_ to be. You're sick of him, he's a fucking enabler, he's untrustworthy and he reminds Chromedome of all the things he doesn't want to be anymore and he's too nice to tell him to frag off, but _you_ are _not._

"Does he still talk when he recharges?" Brainstorm asks, suddenly.

"What?" you blink, caught off guard by the bizarre question.

"Does he ever kiss you on the palm and tell you how nice it is to hold a hand that hasn't hurt anyone?" You freeze as he speaks, but he keeps walking, "Does he press his forehead against yours when you sleep? Does he always try to steal the first sip of your energon in the morning?"

"What the fuck are you implying?" You surge forward and _grab_ him by the elbow and _yank_ him around to face you, but he stumbles as he does and goes down hard on one knee, nearly dropping Chromedome as he does. You stare at him, and more importantly at the steady stream of strangely coloured red energon that's bubbling out of his mouthplate and down his neck, words having died in your vocalizer.


	3. 364

"Get off of me," he snaps, pulling his elbow out of your grasp. Brainstorm struggles back to his feet with no small amount of difficulty.

"Are you okay?" you ask, motionless. He doesn't look at you.

"I'm fine."

"Why are you leaking so badly?"

"I have internal damage," he answers, voice strained, "It's not your problem."

"Wait, no- how bad is it?" you shake your head and rush to catch up with him, "How much are you losing?" 

"I said I'm _fine._ "

"You're cycling for Domey," you remind him, because surely he's forgotten, "If you're cycling _and_ leaking-"

"It's a closed loop," he tells you, with a bitter laugh, "Don't worry. He's going through the filter."

A shard of ice goes up your spinal strut. "You're bleeding out."

"Mmhmm," he says, though he doesn't sound particularly upset.

"You have to stop," you say, aghast, but he just keeps walking, "Are you insane? You're going to _die_."

"And?" he snaps, "Does that _bother_ you now?"

"Yes, it bothers me!" you feel incredulous, baffled, you have no idea what he thinks he's doing, "What happened to _'I'll be here when you're gone, Rewind_!'"

"I talk a big game, _Rewind_ ," he giggles darkly, "But if you haven't noticed, I don't usually win."

"What is _wrong_ with you?" you balk, "You have to stop!"

"I don't have to do anything," Brainstorm asserts, "Stop complaining. Don't act like this isn't what you wanted."

"It's _not_!" you cry, "I don't _like_ you, I don't want you to _die!_ "

"Don't you?"

"Stop walking," you repeat, "Stop and let me cycle him instead."

"You're a third his size and you don't even have an engine. Your fuel pump will give out and kill the _both_ of you if you even _try_."

You stare at him, your too-small hands shaking at your sides. He keeps walking, illuminated by dim red biolights that cast sad shadows in the walls. 

"Brainstorm," you say, your voice weak, "Why?" 

"Why _what_."

"What do I not know? Why are you talking circles around me? What are you hiding from me?"

He pauses and glances back at you, and he looks profoundly tired. You will your feet to move and catch up with him. He resumes walking, staring at the floor.

"I shouldn't have said that stuff," Brainstorm says, his voice hoarse, "You should forget it."

"I can't forget it," you argue, "and if you bleed out and die I'll never know."

"And he won't tell you," Brainstorm laughs, wheezy, breathy.

"And he won't tell me," you repeat.

He stumbles over his own feet, optics dim and distant. "He's not a bad person," he says, eventually, "I shouldn't talk about him that way. He's just…" He pauses, brow furrowing, but he doesn't look at you, "He's just doing what we all are. Coping, and badly. Can't blame him for that."

"With the New Institute?" you prompt. You know a fair bit about that, but not everything. Chromedome says most of it is hazy, confused- he suspects his memories were altered but he isn't sure by who or why or how much and you aren't sure even then if there's anything he does remember that he isn't telling you. 

"The New Institute," he shrugs, "The war. The world before the war. Living in general."

That tracks. Chromedome has never displayed the greatest coping skills. He struggles, and often. 

"He's good, though," Brainstorm continues, almost like he's forgotten you're listening, "Very loyal. He puts other people first, to a fault. He's just dense, and closed off, and it's not all his fault. He did his best, I think. I want to think." 

He trails off, voice distant. You wait for him to pick up again and he doesn't. "Are you helping him cheat on me?" you ask, finally, point blank.

He rolls his optics hard and cuts you a glare. "Does it even matter if I say no? You aren't going to believe me, you think I'm a liar."

"Aren't you?"

"Of course," he scoffs, "Aren't _you_?"

"Not to _Domey_. Not to anyone that _matters_."

"You don't lie to him about your snuff films?"

"He doesn't like those and I don't blame him. Not _telling_ him isn't _lying_ to him."

"Right," he nods, absently, "If honesty is so important to you, why are you confronting _me_ about this? If you think he's cheating on you then go bother him. _I_ didn't promise _you_ anything. Why are you with someone you're constantly paranoid is cheating on you in the first place?" 

"Because I _know_ him," you challenge, flaring your visor with conviction, "and I know _enough_ about you. You are dishonest, you are manipulative, you are charismatic and you are his closest friend. You know exactly how important your opinion of him is to him, you know exactly how insecure he is and I think you have all the tools you need to manipulate my fragile, _traumatized_ conjunx into doing anything you wanted him to." You wish you had an engine to rev beneath your words to give them the danger they deserve. "You are more than capable of taking advantage of him."

" _That's_ your angle?!" Brainstorm titters, bursting with laughter as he spins to face you, optics wide, "You're telling me, so what, if he wakes up and he says 'boohoo, Rewind, I'm so sorry, yes I've been going behind your back this whole time with Brainstorm but it was all his fault because I don't know how to say no to him' you would just side with him? Just like that?"

"Of course I would," you assert, "He's my Conjunx endura. I will always side with him."

"That's insane," he turns away from you again, "You're insane." 

"He's fragile, and he doesn't know how to say no," you reiterate, "I knew what I was signing up for."

"Yeah, well," Brainstorm grumbles, "That's not happening. Whatever you think of me, I wouldn't do _that_ , not even to you."

"Like I said, he _told_ me he's never had anything going on with you," you remind him, "But _you_ keep implying otherwise. Why? Where is that coming from? Is it _just_ to piss me off?" 

"He didn't lie to you about that," he says, evasively.

"Why did you say it like that? 'He didn't lie' but not 'it didn't happen.' What game are you playing?"

"Like I said," he sighs, heavy, full body, "a losing one."

He glances over at you and his optics look resigned, something in them already gone. He looks like he's searching for a response from you but you don't give him one.

"He used to rewrite his memories, back in the day," he says, finally, "he's never been good at coping, and if something was too much to bear, if he didn't think he could live with it, he didn't. He'd just go in and shove things around until he could and then he'd just keep trucking on while the world burned around him. I used to wake up every day certain that would be the day he'd finally break and I'd lose him."

It takes you a moment to process that. It makes sense, but it's horrible to think about, the mech you love so strung out and wrecked he was regularly tearing his mind apart to keep it working. 

"But you remember," you say, realizing.

"But I remember," Brainstorm mumbles, "I remember everything. No, you aren't his first Conjunx. I am."


	4. 1082

You're glad you have a faceplate. It makes your expression difficult to read as you stare at him and try to determine if he's fucking with you or not.

"I beg your pardon?" you say, finally, when the silence stretches too long and you haven't decided if you believe him or not.

"I got transferred to the New Institute after I ditched a skirmish in the Manganese Mountains and my unit captain couldn't prove I'd actually deserted. Clever holoform projection, you see, I'd actually gotten quite good at that by then- oh, don't give me that look, we all did it- I suppose he thought of it as a demotion. Best thing that ever happened to me."

"Are you telling me your life story?" you balk, in shock, and he nods vigorously.

"Yes, well, I've got quite good odds to die then, don't I? Someone may as well know, since he certainly doesn't." He nods his head towards your Conjunx on his back, visor darkened but body still bright with colour, at least. "We were the only two cold constructed bots there, so it's hardly a wonder we gravitated toward one another. Knock offs gotta stick together, you know?"

You squint at him. "You're forged."

"Oh," he hums, "Am I, then?"

"Yes," you reiterate, "You _are_. You've _always_ said that."

"Did I?"

"You did."

"So am I lying now, or was I lying then?" he asks, optics narrowing mischievously at you.

"You're lying now," you assert, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking he's gotten under your plating, "You're sowing discord, like you always do."

"Perhaps," he nods, "I have told a _lot_ of stories. Maybe this one is true. Maybe one of my other ones was. Maybe none of them ever have been! In any case, the knock offs watched each other's backs and so when _he_ noticed that people were going missing that I never recalled having known in the first place and _I_ noticed that every time he seemed to think something was wrong he would mysteriously forget what was bothering him within a few days we realized they were shadowplaying us more than they were _any_ Decepticon, so we shacked up for awhile, kept a _closer_ eye on each other's backs as it were, and, well... one thing led to another," he pauses, optics looking somewhere you can't see and suddenly you aren't so sure this is a tall tale after all, "and I guess that's what happens when you're afraid and alone together. You think you're in love, or something."

"You think?" you ask, growing less certain he's trying to bother you by the second. This isn't his usual MO.

"In retrospect it was probably a little impulsive," he murmurs, "and maybe a little more one sided." 

"He's never mentioned this," you say, dubious but no longer certain what you think is true, "and I still don't think he's lying about it."

"He's not lying," Brainstorm sighs, "like I said, whenever he gets sad he just goes right on in and fixes his brain to whatever state he thinks it needs to be in to keep living. Perhaps I should be flattered, but I'm not." He's silent for a moment while you try to parse what any of that means, but he speaks again before you can formulate a question to probe further. "I got captured by a Decepticon raid during a facility transfer. It took me months to get out, but I did. The whole time all I could think was how much I wanted to see my Conjunx Endura again!" he half-sobs, half-laughs the words _Conjunx Endura_ like a curse, stumbling again in the dark. "How I needed to escape that godforsaken place because someone needed me. And then I got back and he didn't know who I was."

You stare at him, aghast as you picture it. He won't look at you.

"I didn't really understand what was going on at the time. I thought it must have been one of our superiors again, mucking about, so I didn't tell him, didn't want to see him get in trouble or get wiped again. I figured I would just start over. But, wouldn't you know it, while I was busy being tortured in a Decepticon prison camp, he had gone off and replaced me!"

"What?" The revelation that you might not be Chromedome's _second_ partner either is not one you'd considered at all.

"Mach, his name was. Chipper fellow. Excitable. Smaller size. I might have liked him, I think, if he hadn't walked in and stolen my life. Before I really had the opportunity to learn to resent him properly though he went and died, and that's when the whole thing really clarified itself. Chromedome went right in and took him out of his head in entirety, like he'd never existed at all. Just moved on. So, I suppose either he assumed that I was dead or someone told him I was- or maybe I'm giving him too much credit. Maybe he just assumed dead or alive he'd never see me again so it didn't much matter either way." 

Brainstorm's voice is growing hoarse, rough with static and he's stumbling more, slowing down. He's noticeably running out of steam. 

"He did that twice more before he met you," Brainstorm continues, voice low, like he doesn't want to keep going but doesn't know how to stop, "Pivot and Scattergun. Nice mechs, too, and I might have liked them."

"He just _erased_ them?" you breathe in horror, dread creeping up your spinal strut, "He doesn't even _remember_ they exist?" 

"In his defense, it's not like they care," he laughs, "They're dead."

" _You're_ not!" 

He trips and stumbles again and goes down on one knee with a yelp, and you can see now he's trembling with exertion. He struggles back to his feet, fighting for each step. 

"Aren't I?" he mumbles, and you don't know if he's even speaking to you at all. 

"That's crazy," you start, "That's- you must be gaslighting, that's all completely insane, that could _not_ be true-"

"It's not like I can prove it," he shrugs, "Believe me or don't. It doesn't really matter." 

"If all that's real, if that's the truth then what are you _doing?!_ Why are you carrying him, why are you cycling for him when it could and _is_ killing you?!"

"Because I love him," he says, voice soft like the rolling ocean, "of course it's because I love him." 

"You're a coward," you say, voice trembling, "You're a coward and a manipulator and liar, you aren't a self sacrificing martyr with a tragic past. That's not you. That's not who you are. I know you." 

He stumbles and falls again and struggles to try and stay up, arms shaking where they hold Chromedome's legs. He pauses, breathes. 

"Yeah," he says, eventually, and then his hold breaks and he collapses forward like a rag doll, limp and panting heavily. 

"Brainstorm!" you cry and rush to the two of them, hands wavering anxiously over the fuel line running between their abdomens, but he swats you away angrily.

"Go," he says, stubbornly, "go find the exit and get help." 

"Brainstorm…" you say, and when you look at him you see a stranger. You don't know this mech with a look in his optics like his spark has been torn asunder, you don't know his quiet grief or his stubborn silence and you _definitely_ don't know the love you see in him, but you know it's _real_. You don't know him at all. You think you're just now meeting him for the first time, somehow. 

"Don't die," you say, firmly, "I'll be back. Do _not_ die, we are all _not_ done talking about this."

"Rewind," he says, weakly, and you're certain he's about to pass out, "Rewind, don't tell him. It'll only make him hate himself more. He doesn't need that."

"What do _you_ need?" you ask, and your spark hurts. You didn't think you'd ever like Brainstorm but suddenly, looking at _this_ Brainstorm you think you _could_ , if you got to know him. You want to get to know him. You want to see what Domey sees. 

"It doesn't matter," he wheezes, pathetically, feebly, and just like that, like turning out a light, he goes offline with a thunk.


	5. 400

You didn't fall in love with Chromedome immediately. When you first met him, he was just a mech who interrupted his own suicide to comfort a stranger and that spoke to you. That far into the war people had stopped caring about each other wholesale. You had spent your fair share of hours wailing in the streets while people walked right by you, unperturbed by your public display of grief. People simply did not pause their own problems for anyone else's anymore, and this strange mech in the throes of the worst moment of his life, putting it on hold just to tell you that it would be okay- that meant something to you. That means something to you.

At first he was just your friend. A stranger with nowhere to go and nothing to do who needed a direction and someone to keep an eye on him, and you, in desperate need of company, felt it fate that you'd met. You were happy to have his help in searching, happy to have his help in coping. But you didn't love him at first. That came later. That came slowly, crept up on you without you knowing- by the time you realized you loved him you were neck deep in it. By the time you knew you loved him you couldn't live without him. 

And that's when you'd met Brainstorm.

In the grey space between you realizing that you loved Chromedome and you telling him, his eclectic friend from his past came into the picture and you _knew_ the moment you met him that they had some kind of history. You could _taste_ it every time he walked in the room, that acrid _yearning_ that wafted off of them both. Chromedome had already confessed to you his most terrible sins, his deepest, darkest regrets and the idea that he would willingly tell you that he had lobomotized and shadowplayed his fellow Autobots but would _not_ tell you that he had once dated his friend Brainstorm was too much for you to believe, even for him. 

The more you think about it though, the more the pieces fit. Brainstorm is a liar and he always has been, but Chromedome _does_ have huge dark patches of missing memories. You _do_ believe him when he says he and Brainstorm never dated, or at least, that he believes that- but _Brainstorm_ , Brainstorm has _always_ been too familiar, always acted like that. You don't know if you should believe him or not because he's told you so many lies at this point of course eventually he'd tell one that made sense. And _yet._

Your pedes are heavy on the ground as you desperately seek an exit from the darkness, clambering up through crevices too small for your larger companions to have possibly squeezed through, searching for air and light and finding only stagnant blackness. 

It's about to not matter if he's telling the truth or not, because you're all going to die here in the dark.

You think he's telling the truth for some reason. Maybe he's not, but you _feel_ it in your spark that he's telling the truth and you _listen_ when your spark speaks to you. 

And if he's telling the truth, then… Chromedome has more grief problems than you even realized. Would he erase you, too, like the others? Would you just be one more in a line of the dead and forgotten?

But not unloved. He had loved them, at least. The day you met Chromedome he had been about to kill himself and you have always worried if anything happened to you he would finish what you interrupted all those years ago. In some horrible way, perhaps his habit was the only way he knew to keep himself alive. The world has been cruel to all of you.

You don't know how you feel about that. Not good, definitely. Disturbed, upset, paradoxically betrayed but you made him a promise to love him and to take care of him when you became his Conjunx Endura and no matter what he does you aren't going to stop trying to save his life, you aren't going to stop trying to understand why he does the things he does. You want him to live so you can talk about _this_ , you want him to live so you can deal with _this_. You want him to _live_.

Brainstorm too. You've only just met honest Brainstorm but you think you like him. You think maybe you could be friends with him. 

You're shocked when you shoulder check a brittle wall and yank yourself upward directly into the sunlight overhead, flickering your visor offline at the sudden light. 

You _slap_ your comm unit and it fizzles to life, finally. 

" _Hello_! Hello, this is Rewind of Lower Petrohex calling for emergency assistance," you scramble to say, blinking your visor back online and looking around, "I'm at the Mitteous Plateau with two other Autobots. We fell through the ground and they're still trapped, please respond!" 

"Oh shit," says Rodimus's voice through comm static, "Chromedome said he was coming. We almost left without you guys. Hang on, I'll send uh- I'll send someone to come get you- Drift, who can I send? Who's here?" 

You ping him your coordinates. "Please bring a medic, Chromedome and Brainstorm have lost a lot of energon and they're both offline- I think they're dying!"

"Oh, shit, Drift! Drift, go get Ratchet and, uh- someone with a drill! Find someone with a drill! Rewind, just hold on, okay? We'll be there quick as we can."

"Okay, I'm- I'm going to go back down okay, can you track my signal?" 

"Can do."

You dive back down without responding again, frantic and desperate and at first you're certain you've lost them, that you don't remember the way you came and you won't find them again-

And then you stumble over Chromedome's limp body and crumple to your knees to check on him, audial to his chest. You can still make out his spark pulse, beating in time to the frequency you've long since memorized.

Brainstorm's is fainter. It hiccups and stutters and falters and you know he's dying faster than your Conjunx. He's bought Chromedome some time but Brainstorm is running out. 

You linger over his body, audial pressed to his chest plate and you can feel your hands shaking. Energon still moves through the line that connects him to your Conjunx. You have choices you could make.

You could sever it, but that puts Chromedome at risk. Brainstorm certainly wouldn't thank you if he lived and Chromedome didn't and you don't think you'd ever forgive yourself, either- but Primus, if you let Brainstorm die, you don't know if Chromedome will ever recover. Especially not if he knows it was for him. 

You touch your quiet chestplate and feel the thrum of energon moving beneath your plating, thin-lined. No engine. Built for a sedentary lifestyle. You aren't equipped for circulating a lot of fuel very quickly at all. 

Your hand moves lower before you can talk yourself out of it and you flip your chestplate open, exposing your tertiary fuel lines, and you pull out a line and cap it. There's not a choice to make. You won't be the one who made no sacrifices, you won't be the one who took no risks. You all deserve to live. 

You split into Brainstorm's fuel line since he's at a greater immediate risk but he's still cycling for Chromedome, so at some point it's all going to go though the loop. It moves in and out and turns you into a pump that keeps fuel moving now that his is too weak to keep doing it on its own, and the strain begins _immediately_.

It doesn't take more than a minute to make you dizzy, collapsing forward and clutching at nothing. You have no idea how long you can do this, how long it will take for you to be rescued, but you think, at least, that if this is how you go, there are worse ways to die than with the person you love most in the world, there are worse ways to die than trying to do something good. There are worse ways to die. 

You black out.


	6. 356

The world moves bleary, a slideshow of unrelated fuzzy images that bleed into each other and move sluggishly around you, a thick sea of memory. 

You find yourself in your habsuite on Kimia. It's one of those tense movie nights Chromedome insisted on, the two of you and Brainstorm alone in your room because he mistakenly believed you might someday let go of your dislike for him. The lights are dim, the movie no more than a blur of half remembered colours and shapes, and your optics are on _him_ , glaring daggers, but he's not even looking at you. He's looking at Chromedome, optics weary. His field teaks of regret and you think it's because he wishes he hadn't come to this awkward little room party, but you might be wrong.

"Rewind, please," a voice says, breaking on your name and you feel yourself rising to the surface toward it.

"Domey," you murmur, your vocalizer resetting as your systems begin to come online, visor flickering on as your visual feed engages, picture stabilizing. Chromedome is leaning over you, visor flared in concern, and you see your hand in his before you feel it.

"You're awake!" he gasps, and immediately throws himself down and across you to pull you against his chest, body warm and field oozing relief. You reach sluggish arms around his neck to return the embrace.

"I'm alive, then?" you ask, running an internal systems check as feeling returns to the rest of your body, finally. You take a moment to identify the room as an unfamiliar medibay before you return your full attention to him.

"Thank Primus, yes," he murmurs, but he doesn't let you go until you give him a little pat. You want to look at him again. 

Sometimes you're stricken by how beautiful he is, when you wake from recharge or when he returns from a long shift, and it leaves you speechless, thinking about how he never believes you when you tell him so. He's gorgeous, though, soft yellow visor and sloping creamy vents, all his edges and gentle curves that you could trace for hours. 

You pull his forehead against yours, the contact a relief so good it almost hurts. "Oh God, Domey, I thought I was going to lose you," you whisper, not trusting your voice not to break.

"You've not lost me yet," he assures you, "I'm still here. We're both still here."

"Brainstorm," you say suddenly, "Where's Brainstorm?"

"I thought it would be at least a few minutes before you asked about him," Chromedome chuckled weakly, "He's… I mean, he's stable. I guess."

"Stable?" you pull away and sit up, even though it's a fight to do so. Your abdomen is open and a fuel line is running out and into a machine on the other side of the berth. Supporting your fuel pump so it doesn't give out, you guess. He's there, laying another berth down, on his back, completely motionless. He's got patches on his armour and so many tubes and wires running out of his chest and his abdomen you can't possibly count them. His plating is pale, colours dull with the greyish tones of someone dying.

"His engine's stalled," Chromedome says, somber gaze following your own, "and his spark had nearly gone out. He's doing… better, but he's not out of the woods yet. He hasn't woken."

You can feel lubricant pooling in the corners of your optics, terrified suddenly you'll be left alone in the world with his terrible secret, too great for you to bear by yourself. "Oh," you say, because you don't know what else to say. There's too many words within you, too many feelings roiling and combatting one another and all you can say is _oh._

"Rewind?" Chromedome prompts. 

"Oh god, Domey," you hiccup, voice breaking, "Oh, _god-_ "

"What? Rewind, what's wrong?" Chromedome pulls your face back, hands on the sides of your helm, grounding and real but the tears are coming now and you know somewhere in your spark it's not your secret to tell, you don't have the right, but you can't bear the burden of it on your mind for a moment more and you have no idea how he did for so long.

You tell him everything.

He's completely silent as you speak, visor growing dimmer as it pours out of you, an expression you know means pain. You know you're hurting him by telling him but you can't possibly stop, not now, maybe not ever. You can't bear it, Brainstorm should never have had to, but maybe between the three of you you can find a way to hold it without crumbling into pieces. 

"...And you _forgot_ them," you choke, voice hoarse, faceplate wet. He's sitting back on the other berth, hands gripped against the edge, visor barely lit and cast toward the ground. He's silent for a long time. "Domey," you say, "I believe him."

"Yeah," he says, softly, "I do, too."

"I know it's a lot," you tell him, because you can _feel_ him spiraling, "But it- it can't go on like this, we have to _do_ something."

"I know," he murmurs.

"Domey?" you prompt again.

"Rewind," his voice is breaking, visor locked on the floor, "I don't think I can be a good Conjunx."

"No, no, Domey, you're a wonderful Conjunx, you-"

"No," he cuts you off, "I'm not. Not to you, not to him. Not to anyone. I don't even recognize their _names._ "

You reach toward him and he flinches away. Your hand stops.

"You should leave me," he says finally, voice barely above a breath, "You deserve better. You always have."

"I'm not leaving you!" you gasp.

"You _should,_ " he insists, "I have to do the right thing, for _once_ , and you- you should leave me, it's the right thing to do. For you."

"Absolutely not," you say, voice firm, and you drop down from the berth and clamber up onto his. He flinches away from you again but you push forward anyway, crawling up into his lap and holding his face to look at you. "I love you. This is hard, Domey, and it hurts, but you're still my Domey and I _love_ you, no matter what. That hasn't changed. We'll get through this."

"I don't understand," he says as his visor begins to water, "Why? Why won't you just _go_? You know you can do better."

"I don't want better," you hush him, "I want you."

"You're social and excitable and fun at parties," he says as he grabs your hands to hold them, "Everyone loves you. And I'm- I'm _me,_ Rewind, I'm antisocial and bitter and cynical and selfish and-"

"And wonderful," you breathe, "Stubborn, and frustrating, but _wonderful._ I'm not leaving you. Not now. Not ever."

He nods, swallowing thickly, like he's trying to push down further argument. He doesn't think he's doing better, but he is. 

"What about him?" he asks, finally, looking up at Brainstorm, "What do I _do?_ "

"I don't know," you admit, "But it has to be something. He was your _conjunx._ He still _is_ , in a way, it's not like you formally broke it off."

"Conjunx endura…" he mumbles, still staring at him, "I promised to take care of him, for the rest of our lives, and I didn't." 

Your spark feels cold in your chest as you think about it, think back to your own vows with Chromedome, so many millennia ago. _Forever_ , you promised, _I would never stop searching for you._ "No wonder he's followed you everywhere," you murmur, "He's still keeping up his side, even if you aren't."

You feel him shiver. "I promise to love you, forever," he recites quietly, "No matter what may come." 

"No matter what may come," you repeat.

There's a moment when all you can hear is the monitor beeping in time with his spark pulse, still weak. 

"I always knew he was hiding something," you say, because you don't know what else to say, "I just didn't think it would be this."

"Tell me what to do," Chromedome says, and you don't think he can look at you as he does, "I don't know what to do."

"I think-" you start, "I think- well. I think he loves you."

"I know."

"Do you love him? Still?"

He's silent, his field full of guilt and shame. You have your answer. 

"I think you just have two Conjunxes," you tell him, "He's never left you. I'm trying to imagine what that would be like, if I were in his place, and- and we can't just _leave_ him."

"We?" Chromedome prompts.

"I mean- I mean _you_ , but also we, I mean- all your problems are my problems, so we." You shift your position in his lap and his hands move unconsciously to hold you tighter. "I've wondered sometimes what would happen if we actually ever found… him. I don't know what to do. I've never stopped loving him," you feel him flinch, "But I could never stop loving you either." 

"Would you choose him?" he asks, and it sounds like the words _hurt_ as they pass through his vocalizer, "If you could have him instead of me, would you?" 

"How could I choose?" you murmur, "Either way my spark would break in two. I'd rather die."

"Don't say that. I don't ever want to think about you dying," he clutches you tighter, "If you can't chose, how could I?"

"Maybe you don't have to," you say, lost in thought, "Maybe you can just have two."

He's quiet a moment. "You think so?"

"Maybe," you repeat, "I don't know. But maybe. We can talk about it when he wakes up."

Field heavy with emotion, Chromedome nods.


	7. 1111

You were a fool to think that had gone well enough that you didn't need to be worried. You've known Chromedome a long time, too long to keep forgetting who he is. 

You don't know when it was that the exhaustion dragged you back under, but when it let you go and allowed you to rise back to awareness, you knew you were alone. Not entirely, Brainstorm remains on one side of you, as still and silent as he was before, but now the other berth is empty.

What a disgusting gift you'd given him. The first draft of _The Ascetic Cybertronian_ , the only thing you really had left of _him._ The only thing you really owned then that held any value. At the time it had seemed poignant, passionate, giving it to him. Staring at it now, on the berth across from you, it only feels cruel. You haven't seen it in so long that you genuinely hadn't believed he still had it. 

You don't have to open it to remember every page of it in detail, all the well-aged pages covered in neatly written glyphs. He never had been a fan of typing his own documents, always left you to do that from his hand written drafts. It's stained, and crumpled, singed in places. You think, perhaps, that he may have kept it in subspace this whole time.

You know what leaving it means. Returning a ritus gift… there was no mistaking the intent of the message. You could never choose, but you suppose he's chosen for you, miserable, stubborn git that he is. He probably thinks this makes you free of duty or obligation, but it mostly just makes you want to lock him in a habsuite with you and never let him out again. Idiot. 

Or maybe he's just finally gotten sick of you and your obsession with an ex conjunx you haven't seen in four million years. Maybe you do deserve this.

You pat your abdomen and find it closed. You're pumping fuel on your own now. You must be out of the woods. You push yourself to sit up.

"Hey!" says a raspy voice you dimly recognize, "There you are!" 

You glance blearily in Ratchet's direction as he makes his way over to you. "Domey?" you mumble.

"He's fine," Ratchet tells you, "He left earlier."

"Where?" you ask.

"I'm not sure," Ratchet shakes his head.

"Can I go?"

"I'd rather you didn't. You nearly suffered from total spark deprivation; I want to monitor you for dry lines a little longer."

You grimace and glance at Brainstorm. "Will he be okay?" 

Ratchet's optics drift over in the same direction. "Soon."

"Will he wake soon?" 

"Soon." 

You look down and then back at your silent companion, and then open a commline and call Chromedome. He hangs up without answering. Annoying, but it means he still has a commline to hang up. You orient in the direction it pings back, above you somewhere on the ship. With any good luck he's found himself somewhere safe to mope and you'll be able to talk him down, like you always do.

Maybe not.

You skim your contacts and grab Swerve's personal frequency. You remember he was planning on joining this little booze cruise, and you like him well enough.

"I'm going to assume you're calling about you junxy, eh?"

"Oh, Primus, yeah, I was going to ask you to find him," you moan, "What's he done?"

"Well, good news and bad news."

"What's the bad news?"

"He's with me."

"How is that bad news??"

"Well, that's bad news because the good news is I opened a bar! He's trashed."

"Lovely," you scowl internally, "Can you keep him from leaving?"

"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna be a problem."

* * *

"Briefcase," Brainstorm mumbles, the first thing he'd said since you had woken up and you perk up at the sound.

"Hey!" You say, hopping down to grab a chair and drag it up next to Brainstorm's berth, "Are you with me?"

"Briefcase," Brainstorm repeats his servos starting to wobble at his sides and lift, searching.

"You've still got your stupid briefcase, dummy," you groan, "You're lucky to be _alive!_ "

"Lucky," Brainstorm mutters, "Right."

"I didn't think you were going to wake up," you tell him, relief oozing into your field and you're shocked to realize you don't feel compelled to disguise it, but rather let him teak that you're relieved he's alright.

"Yeah, well-" his optics snap open, "Chromedome! Chromedome, where's-"

"He's fine," you say quickly, "He left already."

Brainstorm settles back down, tension melting away as he thumps his head back against the berth. "I can't believe you stayed with me instead of leaving with your conjunx."

You roll your optical display bitterly. "Technically I don't _have_ a conjunx. He left me."

There's a beat and then Brainstorm sits straight up. "What?!"

"I told him- what you told me," you say, and he flinches, plating folding in tightly, "Slept for a while. He'd left my ritus gift behind when I woke up."

"That- that's not what I wanted, you-" Brainstorm stammers, face changing shape as he cycles through emotions before settling on anger, "I told you _not_ to tell him!"

"He's my- _was_ my conjunx endura, I tell him everything, Stormy, come on!" you groan, "I didn't exactly expect to wake _up_ in that case, now did I!" he groans and buries his faceplate in his servos. "I don't understand. Why did he leave _you?_ What kind of reaction is that?"

"I think it's most likely self destructive," you sigh, "He's probably convinced himself I'm better off, that he's doing me a favour." You pause and look away, back at the book laying on his berth where you left it. "Or maybe not."

Brainstorm watches you for a moment, thoughtful. "You're taking this surprisingly well."

"Am I?" you ask, voice bitter.

"Where's all that spitfire you always have, huh? You're always ready to bite my head off at the drop of a hat, but your conjunx of two millennia leaves you and you don't even raise your voice?" Brainstorm scoffed, pushing himself to sit up.

You're quiet. "I spent so much time crying, when he went missing," you murmur, "There's entire years missing from my databanks, too corrupted to recall. I remember standing in the street at one point and sobbing and asking why no one would help me, but the war was on, and people were busy. No one even looked at me." You look down at your pedes. "One day I woke up and just stopped. I think, sometimes, I've forgotten how to cry entirely, and maybe with it lost some ability to grieve at all. He's gone and I feel nothing at all. Just hollow, like I've been scooped out with a spoon. Nothing."

"...Yeah," Brainstorm mutters, "I guess you're not the only one."

You turn back to him, back to his sad optics and weary gaze. "I suppose you have dibs."

It takes a moment for him to process before his head snaps toward you, expression surprised, obviously searching for the joke, and when he doesn't find it he sinks again and shakes his head. "If he was ever going to want me again it would have happened by now. Just go talk him down. I'll be fine here on my own."

"I'm kind of an afthole," you say, and he looks back up and squints at you, "I'm stubborn and sarcastic and I don't always notice things I should and I never let anything go, not grudges or promises or anything else. I never liked you because I couldn't figure out why you were so obsessed with my conjunx, if you were using him or manipulating him or trying to get something from him- and it turns out you just cared about him." You sink down in the chairs, leaning your face against the back of it, knees folded beneath you. "And now I feel like such an afthole."

He titters with startled laughter. "I mean, yeah."

"Can we start over?" you ask. He snorts.

"Fine."

"Let's go talk him down together," you say with all the conviction you can muster. For a moment he looks surprised, but then he nods.


	8. 449

He doesn't look up when you slide into the seat across from him. He doesn't look up when Brainstorm sits down next to you. He doesn't move at all until you reach across the table toward his arm, and then he pulls away from you, shrinking in on himself where he's got his head collapsed into his arms on the table, surrounded by empty engex pitchers. 

"Domey," you say gently.

"Don't," he rasps, voice hoarse and heavy, "Just go away."

"You know I can't do that," you tell him. He shakes his head into his elbow. 

"Don't do this," he repeats, barely above a whisper, "I can't. I know I'm being selfish. I know what you want from me and I know it's not to give up. I know you want me to buckle down and work hard and find it in myself to make it up to you. But I can't. It isn't in me. I'm not strong enough."

You're silent, taken aback. You're used to him being a lot more selfish in his self deprecation. Something is different. "Domey…"

"You're not a monster, CD," Brainstorm tries, "I don't think you-"

"Stop," Chromedome repeats, "It's not in me. It never was. Stop looking for it."

You don't know what to say. You've seen him distraught before, but never quite like this. Chromedome has flirted with destruction but he's always looking for someone to pull him back from the edge. You've never seen him quite like this before, so resigned to his fate, so unwilling to be drawn back from the brink. 

"So that's it?" you ask, feeling anger in your gut, "You're just going to leave me? You're going to end us after all this time, you're going to walk away and abandon me?"

"I can't do anything good for you," he hiccups, "I can't give you anything I don't have. You're better off without me because you need me to try harder and I can't go any harder. I don't have it. It isn't there." 

You reach for him again and his arms tighten and pull away. He knocks over a glass that rolls into its side and off the table onto the floor. It doesn't shatter but he doesn't move to stop it, either. 

"Domey,  _ please, _ " you breathe. Before he can respond, Brainstorm sits up next to you, leans across the table and puts one hand on the back of Chromedome's head, pushing his forehead against the table and thumps the back of his neck with his fist. Chromedome flounders, wheezing a startled noise and flails his arms and you're frozen in confusion and surprise, but Brainstorm sits back down with a huff as Chromedome's, head comes up, visor narrowed in anger.

"Oh, come on!" he snaps at your co-conspirator, who glances down at you. 

"He's pissed that I know how to reactivate his fuel intake moderation chip," Brainstorm explains, and you tell he's smirking even behind his mask, "I'll show you sometime."

"You will not!"

"Domey, you-" you start with a laugh, and then you notice his arms, now that he's sitting up, and you reach for his wrist, the words dying on your vocalizer. You see a moment of panic cross his visor when he realizes he's forgotten to keep hiding it, and Brainstorm's optics silently follow your touch as you pull his arm out over the table and turn it over, wrist side up. On the inside of his arm, he's scored words into the plate metal, almost definitely with his own needles.

_ Don't forget: _ his wrist reads in wobbly writing,  _ Brainstorm, Mach, Pivot, Scattergun, Rewind. _

"Oh, Domey," you breathe, shoulders sinking as you run your palm over the deep cuts he's made, pinpricks of energon peeking out of the shredded steel. 

"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbles, stubbornly refusing to make optic contact, looking at the floor, his arm held out tense like he wants to yank it away and doesn't know how to. 

You cover as much of it with your hands as you can, as if by hiding it you can fix the problem and the problem that made it happen in the first place. "It's in you, Domey. I know you."

It looks almost like something has broken in him finally and his visor waters. "It isn't, though," he says in a trembling voice, "I'm just leading you on by making you think I'm going to get better and I'm just  _ not. _ "

"You're wrong, though!" you insist, "You  _ are _ better than you were already! You're always doing better! You  _ are! _ "

"It doesn't even matter!" he says, pulling his arm away and into his chest, "I'll never be good enough to make up for  _ this. _ "

Brainstorm leans forward beside you, his hands cupping your ex-Conjunx's jawline and pulling his optics toward him. He finally breaks his silence when he speaks, voice gentle. 

"Chromedome," he says quietly, "You were just trying to survive."

Chromedome looks taken aback, making a small noise but unable to speak and reply.

"You were a good Conjunx," he continues, "To me, to them. You were. But you're fragile. You couldn't handle it. You would have killed yourself if you'd tried. You were just trying to survive." 

There's something striking about seeing him hold the face of the man you love the way he is, so comforting and gentle, offering support he clearly needs and you don't know how to. It hits something within you that's pure and powerful and good and you're glad to have him here. 

"I should have died," he says and his voice cracks, "I should have died when I had the chance." 

"No, Domey, you shouldn't have!" you insist, scrambling to get up on your knees and reach him, too far away from you. Brainstorm seems to catch on immediately and pulls away from Chromedome to pick you up and help you onto the table.

"There was a war," you remind him, because it seems like he's forgotten, and you grab both his hands and hold them, "Nobody got through it without regrets. You know that. We all did what we had to and we have to live with it now."

"I can't live with it," he hiccups, "I knew that then, too. Nothing's changed."

"Everything's changed," Brainstorm interrupts, "You're different now. It's been a long time since the old days." He paused and sits back, looking weary and resigned. "You've got Rewind now. Ever since you met him you've been able to cope better than you ever could before." 

You turn to look back at him, at the old sadness in his optics that you're well familiar with now. His eyes that say goodbye from the moment you meet him. 

"Stormy…" you murmur.

"You've got something I never did," he says softly, glancing at you before back at Chromedome, "And you're better with him than you ever were with me. You're going to be okay, CD."

He turns away and moves to stand, to leave you both here and go back to the way he was, alone, unable to move on and unable to go back, in wretched limbo with himself and his regrets. 

You grab his wrist and stop him before he can. "There was a war," you remind him, because it seems like he's forgotten, "I didn't  _ fix _ him. He's just getting better." You turn back to Chromedome. "You  _ are _ getting better. I promise."

"I don't know what to do," he says, but you can see the fight's finally gone out of him, "Tell me what to do."

"What do you think you should do?" you ask him. You glance back at Brainstorm, who's looking at your hand on his wrist, and he finally sits back down.

"I don't know," Chromedome admits, "I don't want to make it worse. I've already done enough. I've hurt you both."

"Well, you know," you say, letting a smile crawl into your voice, "Stormy's done a lot of confiding today, and I almost died saving both your afts." You sit back down and nod towards Swerve. "You could buy us a drink."

He squints at you, not understanding your meaning, before it dawns on him and his visor flares. "What?"

"You know I've never cared about the order," you chuckle wryly. 

He fidgets, glancing around like there's some kind of trick. "That seems like a cop out."

"What do you think, Stormy?" you ask, tilting your head toward him. He looks like he wants to  _ bolt. _

"I think it sounds too good to be true," he admits, "Like it won't work, and it will hurt all the worse to try and fail than it ever has not to try at all." 

"Storm…" Chromedome whispers brokenly, reaching for his hands. He looks almost startled when he finds them, as if he hadn't even realized he was doing that. "I am so  _ sorry. _ "

"I know," Brainstorm mumbles, looking askance, "But that doesn't fix it."

"What do  _ you _ think he should do?" you prompt.

"I think he should patch things up and fix his Acts with the person he’s  _ actually _ in love with," he answers softly, looking toward the door. 

Chromedome's shoulders sink and his visor dims, and then brightens again, tilting his head up toward you, setting his jaw. You give him an encouraging nod and he sits up, looking away toward the bar.

"Swerve!" he calls, and the bartender looks over at your table, "Can I get a double carbonated engex and a cesium martini?"

Swerve gives him a thumbs up and ducks below the counter to grab his supplies. Brainstorm's optics snap back to him. 

"What are you doing?" he asks, wings vibrating against his back.

"What I wish I'd done earlier," Chromedome answers firmly, as a serving drone zooms up and offers him a tray. He takes the drinks and places them on the table, then pushes one across to each of you. You grab the martini and pull it closer, looking up expectantly at Brainstorm beside you.

“...This is gonna be really weird,” he mumbles eventually, staring at the remaining engex on the table, “You know this is gonna be a mess, right?”

“Nothing worth having is easy,” you quip.

Chromedome’s visor flickers imploringly. “We’ll figure it out.”

Brainstorm stares at the drink for awhile in silence, before suddenly his wings flicker. “Sod it,” he snaps, and then grabs the drink and downs it in one very dramatic go. He slams the glass back down on the table and you follow suit, taking a sip of your own with a chuckle.

“Okay then,” you laugh, leaning on the table.

“Okay, then?” Chromedome prompts. Brainstorm takes a deep invent beside you, and you reach over to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. He nods.

“Yeah,” he answers, finally, “Okay, then.”


End file.
